Cancelled Car Insurance

junayda

I've been with my car insurer 2 years and renewed for my third year in January. My quote was pretty much the same for each of the 3 years and knowing very little about insurance I didn't query this. However, due to financial problems I decided to contact my insurer just before my first payment was due to see if i could change from fully comp to third party cover to bring down my monthly payments.

However before doing so i used a price comparison site and found my same insurer quoted me a little over half what I was currently paying them. I queried this with them on the phone and they explained to me they always offer cheaper quotes online than their renewal price. During the course of the conversation I noticed my no claims was listed as 1 year instead of 2 on my documents, I pointed this mistake out to the operator who said this is probably the reason the difference between the two quotes was so great, took my new mobile number as they had an old one (my house phone was disconnected at the time due to previously mentioned financial problems), assured me she'd look into it and get back to me. I told her I was cancelling the direct debit until the situation was rectified and she put a note on the account and said that was fine.

[EDIT: I also pointed out during this conversation that I'd been offered a 0% deal on spreading the cost of my insurance for a third year when they wrote to me about renewing; this obviously hadn't been deducted either since, as I said before, the policy I was given was for pretty much the same amount as the previous year]

I didn't hear back from them, failed to contact them again myself for a several weeks due to both personal and financial issues and the policy was cancelled. Upon contacting them they advised me I owe them approx. 2 months cover plus approx. £200 cancellation fee. They say there's no way they can reinstate the policy, that I need to pay this and then can take out a new policy with them. They had no record of my new mobile number, couldn't tell me who'd taken my previous call and said there was no way the quote I'd received from them online could be correct and that I must have entered some of my details incorrectly. By this point the comparison site quote had expired so I couldn't disprove this, but I think it's highly unlikely since I've been trying to find a new insurer all day and this company are still offering me some of the lowest quotes.

Basically I want to know where I stand legally, since the policy they sold me was incorrect do they have the right to charge me a cancellation fee and do I have to pay the full amount for the 2 months they say I owe even though they were obviously charging me too much? I haven't signed anything as the policy was automatically renewed, and since I've been with said company since I started driving I'm baffled how they got my no claims wrong. I've not yet accepted a quote from another insurer and am not sure whether I should contact them again before I do.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and thanks in advance

P.S. sorry my first post here is oh so long

Quentin

With important financial/legal matters like this, you should always put things in writing and keep copies, as you have found out just phoning them gives them an easy excuse to say "sorry, can't see anything on your record", and you cannot disprove them.

The only hope you have is in getting a reduction in what you owe them because of the wrong NCD they have allowed you.

Write and point this out to them, and ask them to recalculate the premium and the amount you now owe them.

If you want to take out a policy now elsewhere, you will have to tell them about the cancellation, and this may mean other companies are not keen on taking you on, so you may have to take up your current company's offer to let you take out a new policy with them once the debt is cleared.

junayda

Thanks for your reply, I had a pretty good result with this so I thought I'd post an update in case it helps anyone else.

After many, many long hours on the phone to my insurer I got them to play my original phone call down the phone to me; they grudgingly accepted I was correct about the information I'd given, that the matter could have been dealt with straight away had the operator done her job correctly, and on the basis I take out a new policy with them they've wiped off the £200 cancellation fee and interest and are just charging me the time on cover up to the point they cancelled, and I now have seven days to get my quote online and get back to them.:T

I'm pretty happy with this since the quotes they've given me online were the most competitive compared to rival companies. I'm still slightly dubious since the call operators were at times rude and confrontational; I doubt I'll be staying with them for a fourth year.

Interestingly I still got a fair amount of quotes despite declaring myself as having had insurance cancelled, and even more bizarrely one of the call operators I spoke to advised me they don't store information about cancelled policies on any database, I don't know if they were referring to their particular company or insurers in general but now I am slightly confused if I should even declare the fact I've had it cancelled in future since to all intents an purposes they've accepted liability for the cancellation... but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry.